After a Shadow and Other Stories

"Very well. Let it be twice. A shilling a game must be paid for use of the table?"

"Which comes from the loser's pocket. I, generally, make it a point to win."

"But lose sometimes."

"Of course. The winning is rarely all on one side."

"One or two games a night?"

"Sometimes."

"Suppose we put down an average loss of three games in a week. Will that be too high?"

"No. Call it three games a week."

"Or, as to expense, three shillings. Then, after the play, there comes a glass of ale—or, it may be oysters."

"Usually."

"Will two shillings at week, taking one week with another, pay for your ale and oysters?"

Hoffman did not answer until he had reflected for a few moments, Then he said,—

"I'm afraid neither two nor four shillings will cover this item. We must set it down at six."

"Which gives for billiards, ale and oysters, the sum of one dollar and a shilling per week. Fifty-two by a dollar twelve-and-a-half, and we have the sum of fifty-eight dollars and fifty cents. Rather a serious item this, in the year's expense, where the income is only six hundred dollars!"

Hoffman looked at his friend in a bewildered kind of way. This was astounding.

"How often do you go to the theatre and opera?" Hamilton went on with his questions.

"Sometimes once a week. Sometimes twice or thrice, according to the attraction."

"And you take a lady now and then?"

"Yes."

"Particularly during the opera season?"

"Yes. I'm not so selfish as always to indulge in these pleasures alone."

"Very well. Now for the cost. Sometimes the opera is one dollar. So it costs two dollars when you take a lady."

"Which is not very often."

"Will fifty cents a week, averaging the year, meet this expense?"

After thinking for some time, Hoffman said yes, he thought that fifty cents a week would be a fair appropriations.

"Which adds another item of twenty-six dollars a year to your expenses."

"But would you cut off everything?" objected Hoffman. "Is a man to have no recreations, no amusements?"

"That is another question," coolly answered Hamilton. "Our present business is to ascertain what has become of the two hundred and sixteen dollars which remained of your salary after boarding and clothing bills were paid. That is a handsome gold chain. What did it cost?"

"Eighteen dollars."

"Bought lately?"

"Within six months."

"So much more accounted for. Is that a diamond pin?"

Hoffman colored a little as he answered,—

"Not a very costly one. Merely a scarf-pin, as you see. Small, though brilliant. Always worth what I paid for it."

"Cost twenty-five or thirty dollars?"

"Twenty-five."

"Shall I put that down as one of the year expenses?"

"Yes, you may do so."

"What about stage and car hire? Do you ride or walk to and from business?"

"I ride, of course. You wouldn't expect me to walk nearly a mile four times a day."

"I never ride, except in bad weather. The walk gives me just the exercise I need. Every man, who is confined in a store or counting-room during business hours, should walk at least four miles a day. Taken in installments of one mile at a time, at good intervals, there is surely no hardship in this exercise. Four rides, at six-pence a ride and we have another item of twenty-five cents at day. You go down town nearly every evening?"

"Yes."

"And ride both ways?

"Yes."

"A shilling more, or thirty seven and a half cents daily for car and stage hire. Now for another little calculation. Three hundred days, at three shillings a day. There it is."

And Hamilton reached a slip of paper to his friend.

"Impossible!" The latter actually started to his feet. "A hundred and twelve dollars and fifty cents!"

"If you spend three shillings a day, you will spend that sum in a year. Figures are inexorable."

Hoffman sat down again in troubled surprise, saying,

"Have you got to the end?"